Driving Simulator Lab

The Qatar Transportation and Traffic Safety Center houses a locally sourced driving simulator in one of its research labs. The driving simulator includes a Land Rover (Range Rover Evoque, 2017) vehicle cab with accurate placement and functionality of controls and displays. It provides a 180° field of view, which allows for realistic peripheral vision. The driving simulator system provides high-speed vehicle dynamics that represents real world vehicle performance and handling characteristics. It is also capable for additional equipment extensions. It runs on STISIM software, which contains an extensive library of roads, intersections, vehicles and other objects.

The main application of the driving simulators is to investigate issues of innovative transport elements (e.g. road design, in-vehicle technology), to evaluate the safety concept (e.g. possible increase of crashes due to new road design, in-vehicle technology) and the credibility and transferability of the simulator results to the real world. The advantage of driving simulators is that they can provide an inherently safe environment for driving research, which can be easily and economically configured to investigate a variety of human factors research problems.

The Center is currently using the driving simulator in a research grant project (NPRP) aimed at evaluating and testing different and innovative variable message sign on driver behavior.